


first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a monster from the pit of hell with the baby

by Themistoklis



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Canon Queer Character, Character of Color, Crack, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Themistoklis/pseuds/Themistoklis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“A giant stork just delivered our baby."</p>
            </blockquote>





	first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a monster from the pit of hell with the baby

Carlos wet his hair and carefully went over it again with a comb. By the time it dried it would be not much more than a dark fluffy mop on the top of his head, but he was trying to at least make an effort today.

Today was a big day.

He gingerly walked through the house, pausing to straighten pictures and sweep up dust and debris along the way. Over the past couple of years he’d noticed that some of the carpet tended to collect crumbs in places neither he nor Cecil ever ate. At first he’d blamed it on the Sheriff’s Secret Police, but that had just earned him a “Dear, perfect, Carlos,” from Cecil, one of the ones where “Dear and perfect” meant “Poor and misguided.”

Carlos had never tried guessing again. He was probably better without knowing for sure, anyway.

That reminded him... He emptied the dust bin into the trash and went over to draw the kitchen curtains shut. There was no way to know for sure, of course, but the indentations in the soil next to their compost bin in the garden suggested the Secret Police watched the townhouse through that window. Carlos could do without their oversight for a few hours.

Soft hands settled on his waist and he smiled to himself, pushing his glasses up with the pad of his thumb. “Hello,” Cecil purred in his ear.

Carlos put his hands over Cecil’s and squeezed gently. “Hello yourself.” He took a breath. “Did another sweep of the house.”

“Mmm. Beautiful Carlos. Did you check the nursery?”

“Not since last night.”

Cecil’s fingers tangled with his and tugged on his hand. “Carlos! That’s the most important room!” he said, pulling Carlos out of the kitchen.

It had taken them nearly as long to decorate the nursery as it had to decide to move in together. Personally, Carlos never wanted to think about the house hunting they’d done ever again. (For one, it had involved actual guns.) Moving in with Cecil had given him chills and hives by turn. Not that he wasn’t _happy_ , or that it hadn’t been _exciting_ to start talking about it. It was just... Just...

Putting down roots in Night Vale wasn’t like settling in anywhere else. Carlos knew that if he had more than a renter’s key in this town he was never going to leave again.

Of course, now, standing with Cecil in their kitchen, the look on his face reminded Carlos that he hadn’t really been planning on leaving again, anyway.

A visit to the house where Cecil grew up, and the expansive, shining expression of Cecil’s face as he reminisced about skating through the neighborhood streets and selling imaginary lemonade had solidified the notion of staying in Night Vale permanently for him. Though he’d insisted on not living in Old Town Night Vale, where his more anomalous readings always took place, Cecil had convinced him otherwise.

“It’s such a desirable neighborhood,” he had crooned, hands around Carlos’ waist. “There’s just so much more culture in this part of town! The arts festivals, the little restaurants, the children’s programs the local Coven puts on in the summer...”

“The burning concrete and chattering winds,” Carlos had interrupted, somewhat sourly. But the mention of “children’s programs” made something flutter inside of him inspite of himself. And when Cecil had pouted at him, Carlos held both hands up, palms out. “I’m just saying! You’re a light sleeper!”

It was an ineffectual protest. Cecil waved him off. “I’m sure it can’t be much worse than your snoring,” he had teased, nipping at Carlos’ ear.

And Carlos’ face had flushed hot, and he agreed to visit some open houses on his next day off.

One step ahead of him - as usual - Cecil swung open the door to the nursery. It was the brightest room in the house, with a skylight reinforced against hail and smaller falling animals. The furnishings were bright as well, all blonde wood and yellow paint and a framed needlepoint on the wall that had originally been done by Cecil’s grandmother for his own nursery, reading:

 _Spirits make me a little light_  
 _Within the world to glow_  
 _Like hellfire burning in the night_  
 _And never let me go._

Below the text there was a rendering of a baby’s cradle in the middle of a bloodstone circle. and although the colors had faded over the years, it was still beautiful.

It was, Carlos had observed, one of the cheerier slogans available to babies in Night Vale. He much preferred it over some of the more traditional wards in Unmodified Sumerian, anyway. Plus the one Old Woman Josie had suggested made his skin start to itch any time he recited more than three words in a row, and he didn’t want the baby to learn to read from _that._

“Still as perfect as yesterday?” he asked Cecil, watching his husband make a circuit of the room.

Cecil’s lip was pale between his teeth, but he nodded. “I completed all the traditional chants last night. They’re not strictly necessary, I suppose, but...”

“Better safe than sorry?” Carlos asked. He stepped forward and encircled Cecil’s waist with one arm. Today they were both dressed in nice, yet serviceable, clothing. At Cecil’s gentle prodding, he’d left his dress lab coat in the closet. He supposed it was too clinical for greeting a baby.

Smiling, Cecil nuzzled his nose. “Well that and it’s tradition.”

“That too.”

Originally Carlos had assumed that he would be a nightmare of nerves on this day. A jittering bundle threatening to come apart at any moment. But the adoption process had been … startlingly un-Night Valeian. There had been an interview, a home inspection, and they had completed a profile for the agency. And then the call informing them that they had been matched, and regular updates about the pregnancy and baby’s development, and finally, this morning, a warm but professional voice on the telephone informing them of the baby’s birth. The only thing non-standard, as far as Carlos could tell, was that they had not been summoned to the hospital for the occasion.

Instead they had been ordered to remain at home and make any last-minute preparations for the baby’s arrival. Mostly, that had involved making themselves look presentable, Carlos’ last-minute re-sanitation of the entire townhouse, and Cecil’s perfunctory sacrifice of a small vole. Neither of them had wanted to wait until today to double-check the crib siding or buy a reserve of diapers.

Patting down the bedding and double-checking that the corners were tucked in tight, Carlos stretched his fingers to steady his hands. Alright. Maybe he was a little nervous.

Before his next breath, the antique grandfather clock in their hallway, so named because it had been constructed partially of carved bones from someone’s actual grandfather, began to chime.

Cecil gasped and clapped his hands, nearly in applause. “It’s time! Oh, _Carlos_! We have to get to the, to the front of the...”

Carlos’s pulse throbbed in his neck, his wrists. Gulping hard, he fumbled after Cecil, following him down the hallway while the house resonated with the sound of the clock. It wasn’t until Cecil had already bounced through the front door that Carlos realized it was exactly eighteen minutes past the hour. The clock’s last chime faded behind them, or maybe that was just his heartbeat, filling his ears, muffling all other sound.

Squinting in the strong morning light, Carlos scanned frantically for cars. From Cecil’s panicked surge for the front door, he had expected the agency to be supernaturally punctual, but the street was quiet, empty. The only other sign of life was old Mrs. Garcia, who lived in the corner Victorian, fetching her Sunday paper. Carlos waved slightly, but she didn’t seem to notice.

He started to wonder if the heat was playing tricks on him. There were already tiny heat mirages on the pavement, ripples shimmering up from the concrete. Maybe he was missing something.

He glanced over at Cecil, who had grown up here and was used to spotting things Carlos tended to overlook, but Cecil wasn’t looking at the street at all.

Instead, his eyes were fixed markedly on the turquoise/taupe sky.

The sun was blinding and glared off Cecil’s glasses. Carlos had to shade his own just to be able to lift his chin. Everything about the process had been so normal so far, he hadn’t questioned what the delivery might be like. For one bizarre moment his heart seized in his chest, his body suddenly still and silent, and he wondered if an unusually painted helicopter was about to soar over the horizon.

Sound flooded back to him when a formless dark shape appeared instead.

As it neared, his lips parted, his jaw lowering while the shape grew more and more refined. Beating wings sharpened into view along a body three times as large as either of the men standing in awe on their front porch. The bird was enormous, ragged around the edges, and swifter than it should have been.

It wasn’t until the creature was above the houses across the street that Carlos realized its beak wasn’t a misshapen mess. No, the beak was long and tapered and razor-edged, coming to a menacing golden point.

There just happened to be a large pink sling clenched in its mouth, swaying slightly with each beat of its wings.

It had a slate gray body - which might at one time have been white, it was hard to tell - covered in rumpled feathers gathered into clumps, stained with what might have been coal dust. As it set down on the stone path before Cecil and Carlos, it tilted black-edged wings to guide it to a halt.

Carlos thought his heart might burst from his ribs. The bird’s golden legs seemed to be stained with blood. The black feathers rimming its wings and tail were so dark they seemed like holes to another dimension, another time and space.

And its face -- its _face_. Its face was nothing but a stripe of bright, bloody red, ruby against the white-coated-gray feathers spilling down its throat, with two obsidian beads for eyes, as large as either of Carlos’s fists.

A soft, happy gurgle came from inside the pink sling.

There was a scream of “Oh my God!” and Carlos had lunged forward before he realized the words came from his own throat. He clasped the pink sling in his hands and tugged, the horrid bird’s mouth creaking open in surprise, a stench like rotting meat and waste.

The breath forced Carlos to stumble back, but Cecil caught his shoulders, and he clutched his baby -- his _baby_ ;-- to his chest, the knot tying the pink sling into one piece falling forward to reveal a dark, wrinkly face. She was asleep.

The stork raised its spear of a beak and let loose a guttural shriek.

Cecil just tutted. “ _Sweetheart!_ ” he reprimanded sharply. “I’m sorry,” he started again, addressing the stork. “He’s not normally like this. It must just be nerves.”

“H̏ͯe ̀̃i͗s̓ͮͦ an̉ ͬ̊̐̈̌ou̘̬̩̟̬ṱ̖̬̦̗s̖̲̹ī͂d̓eͫ̓̇ͩͣr, un̽̅ͫ͂f̐ͦ͌̈̓a͐̐̾m̪̗̩̅ͥi̎̌̍̉l͂͆ͩ̓̆͛i̾̎͆̉ͥ̌̓ar̐͌ wï̒̐͆̚th̒͐ͪ̐ͦ̆̔ ou̎̾ͯr͂́͌͐ͦͣ ways̍͐̇̏͌.ͮ̿ͪͪ”

The stork opened its maw so that the bottom of its beak touched the stone path. Carlos thought he saw a gleaming, shadow thing writhing in the back of the bird’s throat.

“N̆ͮ͐o͑́̔ͩͨ of̘̜̟f̝e̩n̓̌̍͑s̈́ě ta̻̖̘̯̟ͅk̟̱̝͉͉̖̑̇͒e͍̞͓̘͌̈́n.”

The baby wriggled - or at least made an attempt with so little muscle mass. The point is, she moved in Carlos’s arms, and he could feel it through the (soft, lavender-scented) pink fabric.

The adrenaline from believing his baby was about to be devoured in front of him rushed out of his body all at once. His arms started to shake, and he plopped down on his front step, jaw still hanging open. He ran over and over the lessons the agency had given them about how to hold a baby. Was he doing it right?

A light gust of wind knocked a few loose feathers off the stork’s back and to the ground. It bobbed its head, and it’s beak cracked open to let out the steel-wool sound of its voice out.

“Sͥ͋͊͂͊̿̓he ŵ̽aͨ́͛̏s̊̊ dͨ̅̒e͂̃̌͛ͮliv͕̙̪͚̩͖ͅe̱̼̰̬͖͍r͍̹̲̬̤͕e̞d͇͕̗̳͓̹ aͩt͌̌̏̆͂ͯ 9͍:̴̣̜͎̜̹ͅ2͔͖̫̲̕4̝̮̦͎͕̗̭ th̉̆̾̐̔is m͗̑͊o̢̟r̟͍̗͍̮n̺͉̫͖i͝n̹̰̥̉́̈́̎̑̚ġ afͧ̉̊ͨ͂̋ter̊ͧ̀͒ͬ͌ͤ ë̽ͥͫ̾̾ͤĺev̟͉e̩̤̜̼͇̬ṅͣ h̃̓o̽urs ͨ͂̏̄ͧ̀͑o̐̚f la͊b̎̎ö̿ͥ̒͂́r̍ͥ̋̆.͊͗”

“A morning baby,” Cecil crooned. He crouched down next to Cecil and reached to brush his fingertips oh-so-gently against the baby’s cheek. “Oh, she’s so beautiful. She’s perfect.”

“S̜̳̼͎h̺ê̊̀ wȅ̂̍͊ȉͭ̋ǵhs̵ s̸eve̜n͈̰̻ an̰̣d̝͈̬̹̮͉̟ a̼͕̬̦͑̈̀̉̚ qụ̻̗̜͙̪͟á̪̣̰ͅr̝̲̦̝̭ͅter̿ pouͪn̛̈̄͂ͩ̋d̊̉s and͓͖͚̤͈̗͋̏͋ i̥̞̗͉̖̟̟͛̌̑ͨs̥̜̬͈̳̲̮ tw̲̯̻͚e͔̯̟̼̙ntͩ̇ŷ̉ inͥcͯ̋̒͆̊hes͗̉̊̚ lo̞̜̥͔̻͖n̖̮̱̪͎g.͙̝̑͒” A pause. “Ạ͔p̙̲p̳̠̱̰̪̰̬͔ͅr̫̦̮̪̗̗ox͝i͠m̔͗̃̓ͮͨatͦ̒̇̍è̎͒̒̒l͖y͖̰̝̗̜.̬̳̺̗”

The stork’s voice landed with increasing roughness in Carlos’s ears. It felt like someone was digging around with a sharpened pencil, looking for his brain. But the baby didn’t seem to mind it at all.

“Thank you so much for delivering her safely to us!” Cecil said. He carefully re-tucked the cotton of the sling around the baby so it looked more like a blanket. “Would you like to stay to say the benediction for the welcoming bloodstone prayer?”

“I̥͔̦ ͕̗̬͇̯m̬̘̠us̟̩̳͙̞t̻̭̥͍̼͇̜ rẽ͐tͧ͌̀̇uͣrn t̢o̢ wǫ̀͞rk no̒w̾ͩ̆̉. Bͬú͗ͧ̓t th̪̝̱a̫̤̩̼̘̰̰n͕̱̞̩k̩̞͔͚̱͑̾͆̏ͧ yoú̚ fo̐ͯr eͮͮͯ̄͌͊x̢t̔ẽ̌n̛ͫ̀́̄̿di̮͚n̫̺̫͉g̳̝ t̔hȩ̛͠ ho̸̡͡no͚̺̥̬r̫̤̜͖.”

Cecil nodded, then pressed a hand to the small of Carlos’s back. With a gentle push he helped Carlos to his feet. The giant stork shuffled backwards awkwardly, taloned feet leaving shallow scrapes in the stone path. When it had enough room, it began to beat its wings forcefully enough to rustle Carlos’s hair.

“T̥̬̥͚̻̞h̗̺̞͚e̦̭ ag͢èn̂͛cy̷͌̔ͪ wi͂͆͐̂͒̈l̾l v͗ȉͯ͒͆s̏it̤̪͚ la̷͕͎͍̳̗̝t̲̺̘͞er w̆̇i̊̒͐t͗́̈h҉ a bi̢̫͕̯͔r͚̥t̬͘h ć̪͉̰ͬ̈́̍͐͆͡ȅ̮͢r̝̱͍ͭ̓͛͑̈ͅť̀ͭ͑͌ͫ̀ifȋ̔c̊ͭat̾͊̉e̐̉,” it announced, taking off into the air.

“Thank you!” Cecil cried. He waved vigorously as the stork flew away, turning in a slow arc above their street before disappearing in the direction it had come. Cecil dabbed at his eyes. “I can’t believe it,” he choked quietly. “Now that she’s here, I almost can’t believe...”

“A giant stork just delivered our baby,” Carlos blurted, staring blankly at his husband. “A literal stork.”

“I know,” Cecil sniffed. “Like I said, I almost can’t believe she’s here at last.”

“Did you _know_ this was going to happen?”

Cecil looked concerned. “Carlos? Are you alright? Did you accidentally inhale that pot of forget-me-lots in the garden again? We’ve been going through this process for over a year now.”

Carlos hugged the baby to his chest. She was still sleeping, nestled in her pink blanket. “Of course,” he smiled thinly. “You’re right; I’m sorry. It must have just been the flowers.”

Putting a hand on his shoulder, Cecil gently turned Carlos around to face the (still open) front door of their home. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go do the welcoming chant.”


End file.
